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Launchpad is a

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...

and

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

that allows users to develop and maintain software, particularly

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

. It is developed and maintained by

Canonical Ltd Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

. On 21 July 2009, the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

was released publicly under the

GNU Affero General Public License The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

. , the Launchpad repository hosts more than 40,000 projects. The domain ''launchpad.net'' attracted 1 million visitors by August 2009 according to a Compete.com survey.

Components

It has several parts: * Answers: a community support site and knowledge base. * Blueprints: a system for tracking new features. * Bugs: a

bug tracker A bug tracking system or defect tracking system is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a type of issue tracking system. Many bug tracking systems, such as those ...

that allows bugs to be tracked in multiple contexts (e.g. in an Ubuntu package, as an upstream, or in remote bug trackers). * Code: source code hosting, with support for the Bazaar and

Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...

version control systems. * Translations: a site for localising applications into different

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

s. A significant but less visible component is Soyuz, "the distribution management portion of Launchpad." Launchpad is currently primarily used in the development of

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

, an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

. Launchpad uses the

FOSS Fos or FOSS may refer to: Companies * Foss A/S, a Danish analytical instrument company *Foss Brewery, a former brewery in Oslo, Norway * Foss Maritime, a tugboat and shipping company Historic houses * Foss House (New Brighton, Minnesota), Unite ...

( free/ open source)

Zope 3 Zope is a family of free and open-source web application servers written in Python, and their associated online community. Zope stands for "Z Object Publishing Environment", and was the first system using the now common object publishing methodol ...

application server.

Users

Several of Canonical Ltd.'s own projects use Launchpad for development including

and Bazaar. Development of Launchpad is itself managed in Launchpad. Other prominent projects using Launchpad for various aspects of managing their development include: *

JOSM JOSM () ''(Java OpenStreetMap editor)'' is a free software desktop editing tool for OpenStreetMap geodata created in Java, originally developed by Immanuel Scholz and currently maintained by Dirk Stöcker. The editing tool contains advanced featu ...

(translations) *

Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to i ...

(translations) *

MariaDB MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Development is led by some of the ori ...

(mailing list) *

OpenStack OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software pl ...

(bug tracking) * Pinta (bug tracking and translations) * Upstart *

elementary OS elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu LTS. It promotes itself as a "thoughtful, capable, and ethical" replacement to macOS and Windows and has a pay-what-you-want model. The operating system, the desktop environment (called ...

Transition to free software

Launchpad was initially criticized by the Jem Report and other members of the free software community for not being available under a free license, such as the GNU GPL, despite its aims. In response, the developers stated that they aimed to eventually release it under a free software license, but that it could potentially take years. On 9 July 2007,

Canonical Ltd. Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

released

Storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), ...

, the first Launchpad component made available under a free software license. Founder

Mark Shuttleworth Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the development of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became ...

's responded to this criticism saying "we are all actively working on making Launchpad open source" adding that the funding the salaries of Launchpad's developers to be higher priority, and claiming immediate release would result multiple unfederated instances of Launchpad. However, this still left some members of the open-source movement dissatisfied. On 22 July 2008, Mark Shuttleworth announced at OSCON that the complete source code would be released within the next twelve months. On 19 December 2008,

released the Launchpad component "lazr.config" and "lazr.delegates" under version 3 of the GNU LGPL. An open

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

is currently in beta testing, which will allow programs to interact with the website. Calls for an open API to be released were aided by projects like Leonov that resorted to screen scraping to get data from Launchpad. In December 2008, Canonical announced that the source code to the Launchpad website would be released under a free software license by 21 July 2009.Dev.launchpad.net
OpenSourcing It was also announced that two large components of Launchpad, Soyuz (which is responsible for the build system, package management and Ubuntu package publishing) and Codehosting, would not be released under a free software license.Blog.launchpad.net
"How we are open sourcing launchpad" Later, the specific date was changed to a more general timeframe of July/August 2009. However, on 21 July 2009, the software was released under the

AGPLv3 The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

(a fully free license specifically for web services), including the two components (Codehosting and Soyuz) that were initially planned to remain proprietary.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Launchpad (Website) Canonical (company) Free software websites Internet services supporting OpenID Open-source software hosting facilities Project hosting websites Software using the GNU AGPL license

Components

Users

Transition to free software

See also

References

External links